


The Emperor's Favorite

by pauraque



Category: Star Trek, Star Trek: Discovery
Genre: Dom/sub, F/F, Femdom, Masturbation, Naked Female Clothed Female, Orgasm Control, Orgasm Denial, Post-Season/Series 02, Pseudo-Incest, Submission, Subspace, Teasing, past Mirror Michael Burnham/Mirror Philippa Georgiou
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-17
Updated: 2020-11-17
Packaged: 2021-03-08 18:20:51
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,838
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27031081
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pauraque/pseuds/pauraque
Summary: Philippa reveals the true nature of her relationship with the version of Michael that she called 'daughter'. And forthisMichael, it awakens irresistible desires.
Relationships: Michael Burnham/Mirror Philippa Georgiou
Comments: 27
Kudos: 97
Collections: Femdom Exchange 2020, Women of Star Trek





	The Emperor's Favorite

**Author's Note:**

  * For [hannelore](https://archiveofourown.org/users/hannelore/gifts).



> This was written entirely during the post-Season 2 hiatus, so it doesn't take anything from Season 3 into account and is now effectively an AU. (Darn CBS, starting up the new season in the middle of the fest writing period...)
> 
> Thank you to sdk for beta reading!

When the door to the otherwise empty mess hall slides open behind her, Michael knows who it is without turning around. Her eyes remain focused on the 32nd century starfield she's been staring at out the narrow viewports for what feels like most of the night; she barely hears the footsteps approaching, but she can _feel_ her coming nearer—a faint prickle at the back of her neck like the barely-there pressure of static electricity, which she's come to recognize as the sensation of being near someone from the other universe. She'd felt it from Lorca too, in hindsight, but didn't realize it until after she'd been bathed in it for days on end.

When she feels it now, it can mean only one thing.

"Midnight snack?" Philippa asks, nodding at the half-eaten piece of cheesecake on the table.

Michael draws a deep, patient breath, and turns in her seat. "Do you actually follow me around the ship?" she asks. "Or do you just ask the computer where I am every five minutes?"

"Maybe I was just hungry," says Philippa lightly. "Not everything is about you, you know. Are you going to finish that?"

Michael shakes her head with a sigh of surrender. "All yours."

Philippa pulls up a chair and sits beside her, one knee crossed over the other. She takes the plate; the metallic click of the fork against the glass sounds louder than it is in the quiet space as she helps herself to Michael's snack.

"This is good," she comments after a few bites. "No wonder you didn't want it."

Michael tries for a moment to ignore her, but quickly succumbs to her pull, as irresistible as the gravity well around a singularity. "What's that supposed to mean?"

"You don't like to indulge yourself. Not even when you deserve it. You did just save the galaxy the other day—or a few hundred years ago, depending on your perspective. Yet even when you win, you miss out on the best part of winning: the reward." She slips the last bite of cheesecake into her mouth and draws the fork out slowly. The silver tines slide out clean from between her lips.

"I wouldn't think you would value resting on your laurels," Michael says, remembering Philippa in her sumptuous Imperial robes—surely hard-won, even if ill-gotten. "I thought you preferred being in the thick of things."

"But it's important to savor your victories. Sometimes there isn't much time to do it before you have to fight again." Philippa's gaze flicks over at the viewport, at the yet unknown future in which they've found themselves. "I taught _my_ Michael that."

The way she says that feels like being barely pricked with the tip of a pin. "Well, I'm not her."

Philippa's eyes glitter. "Oh, I don't mind giving the lesson again," she says. The empty plate clinks down onto the table. "It was always a pleasure to grant my daughter her just rewards after she had carried out my orders."

"You mean medals for her butchery," Michael says scornfully.

Philippa chuckles and rolls her eyes as if Michael is the most naive person she's ever met. "I mean _orgasms_ , of course."

Michael stiffens. She presses her lips together tightly, holding the pressure of her reaction inside. She feels the heat of it in her chest, in her arms, in her cheeks, but keeps her expression icy. Not giving her the satisfaction.

"I never let her have them except after a successful mission," Philippa goes on in an easy, conversational tone, examining her fingernails as she leans back comfortably in her seat. "It eventually became very..."—her gaze flicks over at Michael—"...motivating."

This has no effect on Michael. It doesn't make her face feel hotter, doesn't raise her heart rate, doesn't ignite strange, anxious desires in her body. Keeping her voice absolutely flat, she says: "Do you think I don't know you say things like that just to get under people's skin? To keep them off-balance? It's the only real power you have left. And it doesn't work on me."

"You don't believe me?" Philippa asks, that maddening little smile playing about her lips. "I'm surprised. I always assumed you must have had some similar arrangement with your Captain Georgiou."

A predictable line of attack. "Of course not," Michael says evenly, pushing the feelings she doesn't have out of the way, keeping them at the edge of a safe, proper, logical bubble in which her conscious thoughts sit.

"But you must at least have wanted to," Philippa insists, her keen dark eyes searching Michael's face intently—probing for weakness. "I could always see that. It was why I wasn't instantly certain that you weren't my Michael. You always looked at me just the way she did... "

The edge of the bubble begins to buckle under the pressure—the molten heat of all she's tried so long to deny. "In Starfleet we don't do things that way."

Philippa lets out a fricative breath of exasperation, shaking her head. "Don't you people ever get bored with being so puritanical and self-righteous? You may be from another universe, but you're still human—you have all the same desires we do. Isn't it exhausting, spending every day trying _so hard_ to resist your own nature?"

"We strive to appeal to our _better_ natures," Michael counters.

Philippa's gaze narrows, steely and imperious. "The way I trained my daughter _made_ her better. She strove to serve me, body and mind."

"Except she didn't in the end, did she?" Michael blurts out hotly, forgetting that she isn't supposed to buy into anything Philippa is saying. "She betrayed you. You drove her away—right into Lorca's arms."

Philippa jerks back as if struck. But after a breath, a slow smile creeps glacially across her face. It's as though she is hurt, but is enjoying the pain. She gazes at Michael with—approval? Like she respects Michael for hitting low, going for the underbelly.

Michael swallows, finding her mouth dry, caught between her shame at falling into Philippa's trap—and the urge to bask in her praise.

"You're right," Philippa says at last, her voice going slightly hoarse, but her eyes gleaming. "She betrayed me. But worse, she cheated herself. If she had carried out her mission—if she had brought me Lorca's head—she would have come home to pleasure beyond even _her_ frenzied imagination. It had been so long... so long since I'd rewarded her."

Michael breathes steadily. The words that fall from Philippa's lips aren't affecting her. She... she feels nothing, no heat, no twitch between her thighs as she presses them together so, so hard beneath the table.

"But she chose not to claim her reward," Philippa continues, pressing her finger into the last few crumbs of cheesecake on the plate. "She chose not to complete her mission. She didn't ensure Lorca's destruction." She licks her fingertip and meets Michael's eyes. " _You_ did."

The wave of horrified need that shivers its way through Michael's body, head to toe, nearly breaks her stoic composure. She gently closes her eyes, unable to look at Philippa anymore.

She feels the sweet, prickling pressure of the other universe move closer, and for a moment she is sure that Philippa is going to touch her, and not at all sure what to do when she does, but then she hears the short skid of the chair and realizes with conflicted disappointment that Philippa is only getting up to leave. She opens her eyes and finds her standing over her, smiling contentedly.

Of course she is content—Michael is giving her what she wants.

"None of this is true," Michael says, unable to keep the tremble out of her voice. "You're just trying to get in my head."

"Well, of course I'm trying to get in your head," Philippa replies easily. "But why should that mean that what I'm saying isn't true?"

And with that, she walks away, leaving Michael alone with her empty plate.

*

Michael stares up into the darkness, listening to each one of Tilly's long, peaceful snores count out four or five of Michael's own breaths in an agitated polyrhythm. She tries to force it slower, to calm the insistent drumbeat that taps palpably against her ribs. She feels it everywhere her blood flows—in her arms, her feet, and even...

She shifts her legs apart, trying not to feel her pulse between them. It's been a long time—every day filled with apocalyptic urgency, and every night creeping with secret anxiety or utter exhaustion. Pleasure, or even relief, has long seemed distant and dimly irrelevant.

She lets her hand rest below her belly, as though it just happens to be there. As though it could be an accidental movement when she presses her fingertips into her mound and gently curls her fingers, pulling upward. Even that indirect stimulation wakes up her neglected nerve endings and sparks fresh desire, so unexpectedly strong it makes her gasp.

How long has she waited for this?

(How long did the other Michael wait?)

She slides her hand down and rubs her sex from bottom to top, almost roughly, as if she can use pure sensation to erase her thoughts, to make this about nothing more than physical need. She keeps her mouth shut tightly, breathing hard through her nose as she rubs, as wetness stripes her palm.

Even as her body pleads with her for release, her mind struggles, bouncing from one forbidden fantasy to another, shoving each away in turn. Her private shame: all those nights she spent aboard the _Shenzhou_ lost in thoughts of being in her captain's arms, wishing every climax was on her captain's tongue—and then falling into embarrassed melancholy, knowing it could never be, and uselessly swearing to herself that this time would be the last.

Michael presses her fingers in hard and rubs them up and down her outer lips, brow knit and shaking her head no, not again—she can't go back to that heartbreak. If she's going to do this, it has to be with an empty mind, a blank heart, simply ordering her body to release the chemicals that will make her sleep. She can't think about the captain, and she can't think about...

Philippa's infuriating smile dances before her mind's eye. The queen of manipulation, the emperor of lies. She only wants to bend Michael until she breaks; could it have been any different with the other Michael, the one Philippa called _daughter_?

A small, tormented whimper escapes from between Michael's lips as she runs her finger up and down beside her clitoris, feeling it twitch and ache. She longs to give in and rub it to ecstasy, but that would be capitulation, letting Philippa win. She _can't_ let herself come while thinking about a version of herself who allowed herself to be trained and molded that way, who carried out Philippa's orders with devotion and with burning need between her thighs. The same body in mirror image, the same sex crying out for climax, left dripping, left aching to be granted her reward.

Just as Michael's is now.

A sharp spike of arousal comes with dizzying confusion. Her mind is full of tangled yarn, and the more she tries to struggle free, the more it knots and tightens around her.

She strokes her clit delicately until it pulses on the brink of orgasm. She could finish it _so_ easily, just a little more pressure... but instead she jerks her hand away, rides out the edge until it blunts and fades.

She presses her palms firmly against the bed on either side of her hips. She feels her heart pound, feels her lungs fill and empty, feels her body awake and alive and exhilarated. And as she lies there, she also feels surrounded by a pool of strange calm. Her heart slows, her breath slows, her eyelids droop. The rest that had seemed so unobtainable is suddenly within her grasp, waiting to be taken as easily as a nostalgic picture from a shelf.

And before she can even start to analyze that, Michael falls asleep.

*

Leaving her bridge shift the next evening, Michael finds her feet taking her not to her quarters, nor to the mess hall, nor to the gym where she's so often gone to cycle herself to exhaustion. Instead she takes a turn down a different corridor, as smoothly as if she had planned it all along—as if this is the way she always goes.

There must be a logical reason that she's here, some excuse to explain why she stops in front of this particular door and presses the chime. But as Philippa's voice tells her to enter, she still isn't sure what it is.

When she comes in and the door slides shut behind her, Philippa is sitting in the half-darkness with a drink in her hand, no padd, no work before her. As if she's just been waiting.

"Long-range scans have detected what could be warp signatures," Michael tells her, feeling awkward with her hands at her sides. "We've decided to investigate, but they're days away."

A pause; Philippa quirks an eyebrow. "Did... you come here just to tell me that?"

Michael's mouth works silently for a moment, before she admits, "I don't know."

Philippa sets down her drink. She stands, and moves close to Michael—too close, bathing her face in that faint, otherworldly pressure. Michael feels the urge to step back, but stands firm, meeting Philippa's eyes even as her own begin to water slightly from the ticklish sensation.

"It sounds as though we have some free time before the next battle," Philippa says. "Does that mean you've come to ask for your reward?"

Michael doesn't know how to process the wave of urgency that sweeps through her body—not precisely lust, though that, too, still thrums between her thighs—but far more an urgency to _let Philippa reward her_. To grant her the power to do it.

"Maybe I have."

Philippa smiles, though her eyes are still hard and challenging, gleaming like obsidian. "So. Ask for it."

Michael's hands form into fists at her sides. She wants this, but doesn't know how to begin. Surely not with a kiss; she can't imagine anything with Philippa being so mundane, just going from step to step and falling into bed as predictably as a computer algorithm. But what else? She feels like she's standing before a locked door without the passcode.

"How did she ask you?"

"Not standing eye to eye, that's for sure."

Michael swallows; her breath comes in shudders. "You... you ordered her to kneel," she suggests tentatively. An echo of memory: _Don't you bow before your Emperor?_

"That is an order I never would have had to give," Philippa returns shortly. " _My_ Michael knew to kneel before me. Not only knew it—she _craved_ it."

The stinging challenge fills Michael with a drive to meet it, rising volcanically from within her. There's no holding it back anymore; she needs to be that good.

No: She needs to be even better.

Michael begins to kneel. It takes longer than she expected. Watching Philippa's face disappear from sight. Moving down her body. Seeing the texture of her clothing up close. Bringing one knee beneath her onto the thin-carpeted floor, and then the other. It's not one action, but a process, choosing over and over again to keep going, to lower herself further and further, not to change her mind, not to decide that she can't do it. Not sure whether she's gone far enough, she sits all the way down onto her heels and places her palms carefully onto her lap. She is breathing quickly and steadily, aware that she is at eye level with the spot where Philippa's thighs meet.

Philippa's touch is so much more gentle than Michael anticipated—caressing her hair, her cheek—and that gentleness sends her heart racing, her mind flitting rapidly over the possibilities of what might happen next, what she should do, how she is supposed to react.

Then Philippa puts her fingers under Michael's chin and tilts it firmly upward. Michael doesn't resist. She looks up at Philippa, sees her face half-shadowed by her hair hanging down over her shoulders. She sees the settled sureness in Philippa's eyes. The ease, the _power_. And a tension Michael doesn't know how long she's been holding drains out of her body like spilled oil as she realizes that just this once, she doesn't need to be the one who knows what to do.

"Now," Philippa says, "I believe you were going to ask me for something."

"May I," Michael starts, her tongue half-fumbling over the words, "may I be rewarded? Please."

Philippa's hand moves to the back of Michael's neck and rubs her there; Michael finds herself leaning back into her touch.

"How long has it been since you've had an orgasm?"

"I don't know," she answers honestly, her face warm.

Philippa's eyebrows arch and the corners of her mouth flick downward, impressed. "You find it difficult to reward yourself," she speculates. Her hand slips away from Michael's neck as she walks thoughtfully around her, examining her from all sides. "You feel undeserving." She pauses behind her. "What makes you think you are deserving now?"

Michael stays in position, gazing straight ahead, feeling Philippa's presence behind her. "I accomplished my mission. I saved..." A strange delight surges up within her and she almost laughs as she concludes: "Everyone."

"So you did. Good." Her hand rests on Michael's shoulder for a moment, reassuring. Then she turns and walks away briskly with a snap of her fingers, like calling a pet. "Come here. Up."

Some part of Michael is offended—or thinks she should be—but the larger portion has her scrambling to her feet, following Philippa to the darkened alcove where her bed is. It's the same layout as all the senior officers' quarters (not that Philippa actually holds the rank to deserve it) but somehow when Philippa turns and stands before the bed, her head held high, the gray archway stretching above her, it feels to Michael like she is approaching a royal, rarefied space.

When Michael reaches her, she stands at attention. Never having been to the Academy, she's always felt a little awkward doing this, but now it feels right.

Philippa raises her hand and brushes her fingertips contemplatively against Michael's throat. Michael's esophagus moves beneath her touch as she swallows, feeling a momentary twinge of fear that Philippa is going to grab her there. But instead, Philippa grasps the zipper of her uniform. Michael's skin is so sensitive now, she can feel the rumble of metal on metal as she pulls it down her body, opening her shell.

She thinks it should feel surreal as she lets Philippa undress her, lifting her arms for her, lifting her feet, responding to her movements and touches in a shared, elegant dance. Yet as she is slowly stripped bare, as every part of her is revealed for examination, for approval, it feels more like everything is finally falling into place. The room isn't cold, yet as Philippa leaves the last of her clothing in a heap on the floor and rakes her gaze over her, Michael feels goosebumps tighten over her arms and bare stomach.

"It's strange," Philippa muses, tracing a fingertip around the curve of her breast. "Your body is _exactly_ the same. But even without your uniform, I can see that you're not her. I don't think I could fool myself into believing that you were, even if I tried."

"Are you disappointed?" The question sounds confronting in Michael's head, but on her tongue it comes out soft, retiring.

Philippa shakes her head. "No." Then she sits down on the edge of the bed and says, "My boots."

Only when Michael looks down and sees her offering her foot does she realize what Philippa means. 

She finds that kneeling before her is easier the second time—not cutting a new path, but going back over it, deepening the track little by little. The rubber heel of Philippa's boot lands firmly in Michael's proffered hands. It is surprisingly easy to pull it off, to feel it slide around the corner of her heel. She places it down neatly, perpendicular to the bed.

When she pulls the other boot off, her finger happens to slip along the arch of Philippa's foot, and she jerks away slightly, breathing a short laugh. It fascinates Michael to know of this—a ticklish spot, a tiny and intimate vulnerability.

Michael grasps her bare foot more firmly and massages it with her thumbs, thinking this is what is called for, but Philippa pulls away from her hands and places her feet on the floor. Leans over her and takes Michael's chin in her hand.

"I didn't tell you to do that," she says. The slightly ominous edge in her voice makes the implied chastisement crystal clear.

"I... I just..."

A quiet panic threatens in Michael's chest—the shame that she's already failed—but before it can take hold, Philippa grips her jaw harder, makes her straighten her back, stares into her eyes with all the power of the emperor's throne. 

"Don't try to guess how to please me," she states with regal crispness. "Just do exactly as I say."

"Yes," Michael whispers, feeling Philippa's strength in the grasp of her fingers, in the keenness of her gaze—in everything about her. She finds that she is trembling in every fiber of her being to serve that strength.

After a breath, Philippa releases her and orders: "Up." She rises, rounds the bed and gestures to it. "Knees here. Hands there."

Michael scrambles to obey, to prove herself. Arranges herself on all fours, hands and knees exactly where Philippa told her to put them, sinking slightly into the mattress.

"Now stay that way," Philippa says, and though Michael had no intention of moving, being _told_ that she can't feels like shackles closing around wrists and ankles, so vividly that she can almost hear them click into place.

But this isn't like the shackles she's worn before, not like shame and a life sentence. It doesn't even feel like confinement. It feels like _safety_. And the feeling of being safe with Philippa, with _this_ Philippa, makes her head spin, but all she can do is accept that it's happening.

Michael feels the mattress bow under Philippa's weight beside her, feels her nearness. Philippa's warm, faintly paresthetic palm covers the nape of her neck, then strokes smoothly, slowly down her bare back. The gentle pressure of Philippa's fingers along the inward curve of her spine makes Michael shiver—the delicious danger of exposing this part of herself, unprotected—and that shiver travels like an electric charge from her tailbone deep into her pelvis. It's almost uncomfortable, and Michael shifts her knees a little further apart on Philippa's bed to escape the feeling.

Philippa's sharp fingernails dig suddenly into the flesh of her buttock, grasping and holding her there. "Did I say you could move?" Her voice is light, an almost sing-songy scold that belies her hard grip. 

"Ah! No, ma'am," Michael yelps. The unexpected pain makes her straighten her arms and legs, hold herself at attention—focused. She doesn't even realize what she just said until Philippa points it out.

"So it's _ma'am_ , now?" she asks, a smile audible in her voice. "It's been a long time since I've been called that one. I think it makes me sound a little old. But I guess I can live with it."

She releases her—Michael exhales her relief through pursed lips—and then Philippa softly caresses the skin she just hurt, making circles with her palm that elicit stinging echoes of pain, strangely satisfying.

"Don't make me punish you," Philippa cautions, and Michael is amazed at how easy and sanguine her voice is when she says that. Someone confident in her power doesn't need to shout or berate to make herself obeyed; the other Philippa knew that too.

Her fingers brush down the cleft between Michael's cheeks and find the spot where her vulva begins. She pauses there, pressing gently but not yet going further.

Michael takes this pause for what it is: A moment to stop and _feel_. She feels her hands and knees pressed into Philippa's blankets. The tension in her thighs. The ache in her clit. Her breath tickling past her lips, in and out. Michael has felt many liminal moments like this: The second before you open fire, before you launch the suit, before you tell the secret—before you make the choice you can't take back. And maybe they've already crossed that line tonight, already stepped off the launch bay into open space. But this feels like the last threshold; the EV tether's about to be cut.

Michael isn't sure she's ready. But that's never stopped her before.

"Please," she whispers, trembling, her eyes shut tight.

"Please what?" Philippa murmurs. "This?"

And her finger slides into the river valley between Michael's labia, so very hot and so very wet. Michael can hear the soft kiss of her own slickness as Philippa makes a leisurely exploration around the opening of her vagina, lingering over the delicate tissues around her urethra. Some of Michael's voice comes out with each breath, unformed and half-surprised at the intensity of the sensation.

"Is this what you wanted?" Philippa prompts, amused.

"Y-yes," Michael shudders out, and then again: " _Please_."

"I had no idea there was so much heat under that stuffy uniform. You hide yourself well." Philippa's finger slides up and down, further on each stroke until she's pressing right beside Michael's clit. "But I see you now."

Michael's hands fist in the blanket; she forces herself to breathe steadily, not to move, not to press back into Philippa's touch no matter how much she craves to do so. Another finger slips between her lips and Philippa strokes both sides of her clit, scissoring it between them.

"You know you don't come until I say," Philippa reminds her languidly. "Only I can give you that. You get your reward from me. Nobody else."

Those words make Michael's clit twitch between Philippa's fingers, make her pelvic muscles clench. Why? She's never known anything like this before, yet it feels like coming home. She nods, accepting this, whatever it is, whatever Philippa chooses to do to her. Philippa's fingers move a little faster now, a little harder. Her touch builds off the pleasure Michael denied herself last night, nurturing it to grow bigger and brighter with every stroke.

"Are you close?" Philippa asks.

"Yes," Michael gasps, high and tense, almost a sob.

"Don't come," Philippa warns. Then, more sharply: "What did I say?"

"Don't come," Michael repeats through gritted teeth, struggling to back away from the edge.

Philippa pulls her hand away, and then firmly caresses Michael from shoulders to tailbone. It sparks like fireworks, drawing everything she's been feeling through her whole body, calling attention to her skin's sensitivity, to the evaporative coolness of her perspiration.

"Good girl," Philippa says. "You can move. Stretch."

With a raw, uncontrolled groan of shuddering relief, Michael lets her head fall onto Philippa's pillow, stretches out her back and her aching legs as Philippa pets her. It feels _so good_ , this break, this praise. The release of the tension after holding statue-still for Philippa is more intense than some orgasms she's had.

"Very good. I like to see you this way. Head down, ass in the air..." Philippa rubs the curve of Michael's buttocks and down the sensitive backs of her thighs. Her voice is affectionate, almost dreamy. Then it snaps back into steel: "Stay that way while I edge you again."

Michael's heart leaps and she scrambles to arrange herself, to settle her elbows on the bed, her head on her crossed hands, her knees apart. Only after she's done so does she think to be surprised at herself, at her eagerness to please. It's like her body knows exactly what to do and her brain is lagging behind, hurrying to catch up.

Philippa's hand is back between her thighs, stroking, warming her back up—a new shock of pleasure, like another first touch.

Then her fingertips pause, just barely touching her, and she says: "Show me how you want it."

"Show you...?" Michael echoes, uncertain.

With precise, slightly impatient emphasis, Philippa explains: "Rub yourself against me. You can move to do it. I give you permission. Just don't come."

Michael's face and chest feel hot as she starts to obey, rocking tentatively back and forth against Philippa's fingers. It's awkward at first; she pushes back too hard and Philippa's fingertip jabs into her. But she feels the mattress move as Philippa shifts, adjusts her angle, holds her fingers close together, and Michael's next movement brings them sliding _right_ over her clit.

Michael sucks in a breath through her teeth. She props up on her elbows and does it again, rides her hips over Philippa's steady hand. Philippa is now the one who holds still and firm as a statue, not letting her hand be pushed away. She is there for Michael, allowing her to fine-tune the pressure, the speed. Michael presses back and rolls her hips in a circle, letting out a tense grunt with each orbit.

"There you go," Philippa says, almost soothing. "Use my hand. Get close, then stop."

It's maddening how that order to _stop_ illogically ratchets up her arousal, makes her all the more desperate to rub her clit frantically against Philippa until her pleasure explodes. Michael moves carefully, trembling with desire as she torments herself on these cruel, merciless fingers.

"Careful..." Philippa cautions, drawing the word out into a slow, mocking tease.

Michael's clit pulses dangerously, and it is _so hard_ to stop, to do the opposite of what every nerve in her body is screaming for, to rip herself away from the very threshold of heaven. She pulls away from Philippa's fingers with a growl of agonized frustration and buries her face in Philippa's pillow, her fists balled up tight.

Philippa lets out a chuckle, low and breathy. "Good girl," she says, and lets Michael cool down for a minute, rubbing her shoulders, her thighs, her stomach. "You're doing so well."

Michael basks in the praise; her suffering is dispelled so quickly by that bright, spreading euphoria that reaches all the way to her fingers and toes, making her arch her back like a cat under Philippa's admiring touch.

But Philippa doesn't let her rest as long this time.

"Up," she orders sharply with a pat on Michael's backside. "Sit up on your knees."

She obeys quickly—too quickly, seeing spots when she rises, almost losing her balance as she sits back on her heels. Philippa grasps her by her flanks to steady her. As Michael's vision unclouds, their eyes meet, and only then does Michael realize how excited Philippa is too, her chest rising and falling rapidly, her eyes gleaming like a hungry wolf. It's almost overwhelming, seeing her, _being_ seen, knowing there are no secrets between them anymore.

"You're so obedient," Philippa says, her voice oddly soft and brittle as she cups Michael's cheek in her hand, runs her thumb over her jaw. "My pet..."

And for a moment, Michael thinks she sees the smallest slip of the emperor's mask, a tiny window into the ache of what she's lost—much more than an empire. Only a moment, but it leaves Michael certain that Philippa needs this as much as she does.

"So," Philippa says, her mouth curving into a smile as her fingers trace lightly down Michael's body, making her shiver. "I suppose you still want your reward? You've done everything I asked, after all."

Michael spreads her knees apart for Philippa and lets out a shuddering breath as she reaches down and brushes against the wetness there. The rough fabric of Philippa's sleeve rubs against Michael's bare inner thigh, so sensitive. 

"Yes, ma'am," Michael says. She grips her own thighs, fingers digging in. " _Please_..."

Philippa teases her all over again, as if starting from the beginning. Only now she knows exactly what kind of touch Michael craves, where and how hard, where to stroke and where to rub, and she uses that knowledge against her without mercy.

"Don't come," Philippa murmurs while she makes the exact same slow, firm circles over Michael's clit that she'd given herself a minute ago, the ones that brought her to that desperate edge.

"Don't come," Michael whimpers back, her eyes shut tightly, brow knit. "Don't come..."

"I think I could do this to you all night," Philippa muses, her voice an infuriating mixture of pride and ridicule. "You would never give in, would you? You would never come without permission, no matter how long I tortured you. You just wouldn't permit it. You have so much control... It makes you _so much fun_ to play with."

Michael's head is swimming. Submission, control... one and the same.

"Do you want me to let you come?" Philippa asks.

"Yes," Michael gasps.

"Beg for it."

"Please, ma'am, please, _please_... Philippa— I can't— I—" She shakes her head, mouth open and empty of the words for what it is she can't do, refusing the threatening climax that pounds ever closer, ever more urgently with each stroke of her clit.

"You've done everything right to earn your reward," Philippa says, as calm as Michael is frantic, "but there's something you need to understand. Look at me, Michael."

She obeys, opens her eyes, looks at Philippa with abject, shameless need.

"I am not a puzzle box where if you make all the right moves, your prize comes out. No matter how good you are, _I_ still get to decide. I decide whether you have an orgasm right now..."—Philippa gazes searchingly into Michael's face as she teases more and more lightly around her clit, holding her on the edge—"...or not at all."

The tears come without warning, spilling down Michael's cheeks, releasing everything inside her that has nowhere else to go. They're not the tears of grief or rage—those she's cried so many times—but of an exquisitely painful joy that is so much bigger than any of those feelings, flooding her body, flooding her eyes, and drowning all the rest of it out.

" _Yes_ ," she hisses, trembling, pleading. And she says again: "Please..." But as close as she is, as easily as Philippa could tip her over the edge—she isn't begging to come anymore.

She is begging for Philippa to be the one to choose.

Philippa's other hand comes to Michael's face, cradles it, and brushes the tears away from below her eyes. A smile creeps over her face little by little, not taunting or sneering now, but deeply pleased.

"So," she whispers tenderly, "you _are_ my Michael after all."

-the end-


End file.
